Julian’s Ranching Guide for Mind over Magic
Game Version:
Guide Version: 1.0
Quick Facts About Animals in a “Rat’s Nest” or “Croa Coop”
• They will drop twice as much loot, except for the Croa corpse and the small carcass.
• They will be killed in a single cast, even with a low fire skill.
Why You Should Set Up a Farm
Ranching can provide large amounts of animal parts like sinew, viscera, small carcasses,
eyeballs, brains, and indirect meat. Some reasons to set up a farm include:
• You need more materials than you could get by hunting wild animals.
• You want to automate farming so you don’t have to manually mark animals for hunting.
• You want your mages to be efficient.
Prerequisites
To research Rat Ranching, you need to build a Mage’s Study. For this, you need 4 Scholarly
Luxury, which requires bookshelves to be unlocked.
Additionally, you need a mage with a Lightning Skill of 3. You can achieve this by:
1. Starting with a lightning mage, or
2. Building a Wand Shaper, crafting a Lightning Wand I, summoning a Lightning Initiate,
training the initiate at the Learning Stone until fully trained, researching the Ritual Sigil,
building the Ritual Sigil, and hiring the Lightning Initiate as staff.
Then you need to research and build a pasture. This will also unlock the “rat’s nest”, the “feed
trough” and the “rat feed” which you will need.
Pasture Mechanics
Each pasture provides 12 Open
Pasture space, which adds up when
multiple pastures are built. Any
structure placed within a pasture will
reduce open space, including:
• Rat’s Nest (4 space)
• Feed Trough (3 space)
• Magic Support (even if it doesn’t touch the ground)
A pasture for rats requires at least one Rat’s Nest and one Feed Trough, but you can place as
many as you like.
Each Rat’s Nest can hold up to 8 rats, and each rat requires 6 Open Pasture. They will
reproduce until:
1. The nest reaches its cap (8 rats), or
2. There is no more Open Pasture.
You should manage breeding carefully. Setting the breeding population to 2 means any rats
beyond that will be marked for hunting. If you set it to 4, reproduction occurs twice as fast; at 6,
it occurs three times as fast but leads to issues. With a breeding population of 6, newborns will
take up space but cannot be hunted, leading to a full nest where breeding stops. A breeding
population of 4-5 is optimal in my opinion.
Feeding Rats
To feed rats, you need to make Rat Feed in the Gruel Pot. This requires researching Gruel Pot
and Bitterrice, which should be done before anything else.
• Set the food type in the Feed Trough to Rat Feed.
• Adjust the maximum amount and the refill threshold.
• Keep in mind that only students can refill the trough.
Capturing and Managing Rats
Once everything is set up, start capturing rats:
• Mark at least 2 rats for capture. They will be moved to the pasture.
• You can capture additional rats as long as space is available.
• Captured rats are killed in one hit and drop more loot.
• If a captured rat exceeds the breeding population, it will be automatically marked for
hunting.
Tips and Tricks
• Rats don’t starve to death, but hungry rats don’t count as breeding adults and won’t
reproduce.
• Use multiple Rat’s Nests to ensure a steady breeding population.
• Mixing Rats with Croas is possible but requires careful Open Pasture management.
• Small carcasses take up 10x the storage space of other materials. Use Midden Jellys
or cook them into meals to prevent storage overflow.
• Recommended Pasture Size: 45+ Open Pasture per Rat’s Nest (~4 pastures) to
accommodate 6 rats per nest, plus space for the nest and trough.
• A Feed Trough can only hold one type of food.
Breeding Rates
Breeding Breeding
New Rat Every
Adults Rate
2-3 1 6 hours
4-5 2 3 hours
No newborns (nest
6-7 3
full)
Checklist
1. Build an Arcane Secretary
2. Research Gruel Pot
3. Build Gruel Pot
4. Research Bitterrice
5. Build a Bitterrice Plot
6. Build a Wand Shaper
7. Craft a Lightning Wand
8. Summon a Lightning Initiate
9. Build a Learning Stone
10. Fully Train the Initiate
11. Research Ritual Sigil
12. Build a Ritual Sigil
13. Hire the Initiate as Staff
14. Research Bookshelf
15. Build a Mage's Study
16. Research Rat Ranching
17. Set Rat Feed to Auto-Craft Until X
18. Build a Pasture
19. Build a Rat's Nest
20. Adjust Settings in the Rat's Nest
21. Build a Feed Trough
22. Adjust Settings in the Feed Trough
23. Capture at Least 2 Rats
Croa Ranching
The principles of Croa ranching are the same as Rat ranching, but it becomes available much
later in the game due to multiple prerequisites.
Differences Between Rats and Croas
• Maximum breeding population is 5.
• Croas require 8 open pasture per individual.
• Optimal breeding population is 2-3.
Prerequisites
To research Croa Ranching, you need a mage with
Lightning Skill 4. To achieve this, you must obtain
a Lightning Tier 2 Wand, which requires Potions
of Recharging.
To upgrade a Lightning Mage’s Wand, you need to unlock the Wand Transfigurator.
Additionally, a Mage’s Tower is required to research Croa Ranching.
To construct a Croa Coop, you need Mandrake Root and Runewood, which require expanding
into fog-covered areas.
5 Meat is necessary for building a Dragon Wok, a cooking station.
Crabbage, Rock Candy, and Jumping Nuts are required to produce Croa Feed.
Once all prerequisites are met, you can begin producing Croa Feed and setting up your Croa
ranch.
If you notice any errors or missing details, please let me know so I can make improvements.
